Seeing more Scanner [REDACTED] reviews lately

GearGlider-INGGearGlider-ING Posts: 1,335 ✭✭✭✭✭

After rarely seeing any for almost a year now, I just got 4 [REDACTED] submissions. Most of them were duplicates, but one was a brand new portal. A few friends are reporting the same, and sometimes we even had the same [REDACTED] nominations to review!

Anyone else seeing this? Niantic might be shaking out few that have been stuck.

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Comments

  • Thor3381-INGThor3381-ING Posts: 220 ✭✭✭

    got one as well, which wasn't yet in the network

  • sogNinjaman-INGsogNinjaman-ING Posts: 3,313 ✭✭✭✭✭

    surely we can't be getting to the bottom of the pile, or did someone at Niatic find that missing backup of "Portal Nominations 2015" that has been hiding?

  • Hosette-INGHosette-ING Posts: 3,469 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited April 2021

    Maybe they've re-prioritized the queue to focus on older stuff? If so, I'll be reviewing like a fiend. I'm soooooo tired of playground and sports fields and McDonalds drive-thru menus and whatever rubbish is in someone's front yard.

    Post edited by Hosette-ING on
  • GearGlider-INGGearGlider-ING Posts: 1,335 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Lol, there was a [REDACTED] church I reviewed that had Ingress terms in the Description. Really took me back.

    I remember when I first started submitting and I was sneaking in words like "Enlightening" and "Exotic" in descriptions, thinking I was being clever. Ah, the good ol' days.

  • Roli112-PGORoli112-PGO Posts: 2,236 Ambassador

    I hope you re-think about that stance if you are seriously considering applying to be a CA.

  • Mernie9-INGMernie9-ING Posts: 42 ✭✭✭

    I believe it. I have friends in Washington DC who has several submissions nearing 3 years old. I'm nearing one year on a few of mine, still in queue. In my area, about 5% approve within a year without an upgrade. Essentially, if you want stuff approved you have to do an obscene amount of Wayfarer work, and then pray that the reviewers won't arbitrarily reject your submissions.

    I would love it if they would find a way to get the old stuff through voting. It seems so unfair to have wayspots reviewed and approved without upgrades within a week in certain areas, where other nominations have been lingering for years.

  • Hosette-INGHosette-ING Posts: 3,469 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @Roli112-PGO Why do you say that? Would you expect that a CA wouldn't have personal preferences about what they enjoy reviewing? I'm just suggesting that the texture of the older submissions is different than that of current ones, and a change of pace would be nice.

  • sophielab-INGsophielab-ING Posts: 266 ✭✭✭✭

    It needed to be revamped. The reviews were lately being spammed by outlying areas with ineligible stuff. They get results back in week and continue to submit everything. What I was actually seeing was the gas station, convience store and anything else directly on the way to work or errands. There weren't the trails heads or town halls etc that used to be there.

  • KetaSkooter-INGKetaSkooter-ING Posts: 177 ✭✭✭

    That'd be lovely if they'd revamp the system to push the oldest nominations through. Evenly split % reviewed from current, bonus, home, oldest in country then sprinkle the upgraded in.

  • 0X00FF00-ING0X00FF00-ING Posts: 769 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Ayup, the OPR-era submissions mostly lacked all of the myriad Sportsball Field #5 nominations, as those were being nearly universally rejected by reviewers.

    I'd suspect that most of these older ones are from lower-density places that just didn't have enough people reviewing to push them all through. So hopefully not toooooo many duplicate-already-in-game ones.

  • Ribcage-INGRibcage-ING Posts: 45 ✭✭

    I've seen a few, fortunately or unfortunately they were already in game.

  • Shilfiell-INGShilfiell-ING Posts: 1,560 Ambassador

    I've received quite a few to review of late - it's nice when they're so old that street view has actually caught up and shows the candidate! It looks like a few are brand new to game and nicely eligible, so I'm happy to help push them along.

  • kholman1-INGkholman1-ING Posts: 52 ✭✭✭
    edited April 2021

    Playgrounds and athletic fields have been on the valid criteria list for a long time. Not everyone likes them but they are valid if they meet the location requirements, safe access, etc. I agree on the restaurant signs, So many taken from inside a vehicle when they order food. Lawn ornament submissions are going to happen as long as niantic doesn't stress education with nominators along with submitters who could care less about quality and think anything is valid or just want a new poi.

  • Gendgi-PGOGendgi-PGO Posts: 3,534 Ambassador

    I'm curious if anyone saw more than 4 Redacted nominations in the US. The four I reviewed were not in my normal review regions so they fall under typical "suspect upgrade or suspect honeypot."

    They included two churches (one in Manchester, NC and one in Miami, FL - one was a duplicate and the other appeared "eligible.") They also included the two following:

    The Raven:

    I find this one interesting and have been following it on Intel. The location of the nomination was  The Raven was https://maps.app.goo.gl/cYuPAZAUQw26hY7P8 which, if you look, was very accurate. However, there is a nearby Portal without a photo that I suspect is technically an early seed of said statue and, thus, a duplicate. See https://intel.ingress.com/?ll=36.235667,-91.249611&z=19&pll=36.235667,-91.249611Intel link. Why do I suspect it's a duplicate? Because the title of the portal is "2010, Ravenden, AR, USA - city" - a very peculiar styled title that if you Google search pulls up "2010, Ravenden, AR, USA - city mascot" with a photo of The Raven.

    The other "interesting" candidate was a water tower that could be a duplicate or could be rejected for ineligible text.

    I'm wondering more, now, if these aren't "honeypots." If they are honeypots, I find that in very poor taste for Niantic to use such subjective ones with no clear guidance on how to review. If they aren't honeypots, I wonder why The Raven has not yet been approved or duplicated.

  • kholman1-INGkholman1-ING Posts: 52 ✭✭✭

    The Raven is not even on intel for ingress. I am guessing it is a nomination that has been in the queue for ages and potentially was upgraded by the person who nominated it we don't know.

  • 0X00FF00-ING0X00FF00-ING Posts: 769 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited April 2021

    Niantic's Wayfarer does not have "honeypots". ALL nominations are submitted by players.

    Rather, you're conflating a different thing. Or at best you're using a misnomer. The tl;dr is, due to the PRP lawsuits, Niantic is obligated to themselves manually review a "statistically significant" proportion of nominations. The decision those employees/contractors make for the nomination is final, but is then fed back into the review pool; and any reviewer that agreed with Niantic's decision (approval or rejection) gets an "agreement" point, and any reviewer that disagreed does not.

    Those "pre-reviewed" nominations are the ones a loud minority of commenters incorrectly call "honeypots".

    Post edited by 0X00FF00-ING on
  • Rodensteiner-PGORodensteiner-PGO Posts: 1,705 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Still, if a bee falls into a "pre-reviewed" nom, it drowns in sugar.

  • Hosette-INGHosette-ING Posts: 3,469 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @Gendgi-PGO I saw the duplicated water tower and the duplicated church. Possibly what happened is that they got upgraded, either by the players who submitted them or by Niantic somehow pushing them higher.

    @0X00FF00-ING Yes, Niantic is obligated to manually review some submissions. There's a common belief that Niantic is using a subset of these as tests, and people who disagree with them are likely to see an immediate impact to their reviewer rating. Anecdotal evidence suggests this may be true, but I don't know if it's conclusive.

    @kholman1-ING Yes, playgrounds and athletic fields have been acceptable for a long time. Recent submissions seem to have a much higher percentage of them compared to things from a couple of years ago. I'm not complaining that they're being submitted... I'm just personally lamenting a lack of variety.

  • 0X00FF00-ING0X00FF00-ING Posts: 769 ✭✭✭✭✭

    If your complaint is that J. Random Niantic Employee votes on some nominations differently than some collaborating clique or cabal of reviewers, that still doesn't make a pre-reviewed nomation a "honeypot". Vote as Niantic says to vote, and your agreement scores ticks up. Vote against Niantic's guidelines, and your agreement scores doesn't tick up.

    The language used is important, and carries connotations. Perpetuating the myth of "honeypots" (simply by using that word) creates an atmosphere of maliciousness, that Niantic is having a "sting operation" to catch bad reviewers in a big "ha! gotcha!" moment.

    We've pleaded with @NianticCasey-ING that these pre-reviewed nominations could be used as an educational exercise, if only reviewers could be shown after-the-fact which ones they strayed from Niantic's opinion. And while we were given the impression that they kinda think this is a pretty good idea overall, it's a loooooong and complicated process in the backend, and we may never actually see it.

  • BaltiCalling-INGBaltiCalling-ING Posts: 362 ✭✭✭✭✭

    I reviewed the Raven one earlier.

    Gave it very high marks, was not in game yet.

  • Cruelien-INGCruelien-ING Posts: 10 ✭✭

    It's actually the terminology they use. Look at the website's CSS.

    And here's the icon for it for those curious


  • Shilfiell-INGShilfiell-ING Posts: 1,560 Ambassador
    edited April 2021

    I also reviewed both the Raven and the Waterfall Tower, and gave high marks to the Raven. Is it possibly a duplicate of the submission with a missing/deleted photo, nebulous and overly long name, located in the middle of a highway? Perhaps, but I have no real way to tell. That other waypoint should be removed from game as invalid, unsafe.....but I see it still exists on Intel. I was reviewing the candidate presented, which is a well-titled valid POI in a correct location, safe pedestrian access, crisp clear photo, and interesting above all. There just aren't enough match points for me to reject this lovely bird as a duplicate. Waterfall Tower, no question - rejected for invalid text despite being a good potential addition to the database. Public descriptions are no place for game-based rants.

  • Lechu1730-PGOLechu1730-PGO Posts: 537 ✭✭✭✭

    As I'm not an ING old timer, are these nominations the ones that have only the title and one picture, with description showing as <No Description> and no additional picture nor info?

    If so I came across one yesterday. Small shrine, GSV matched, no duplicate, pin slightly mismatched, which I corrected. The odd thing is that it came from an area in the suburbs of Buenos Aires that I don't think is deprioritized so maybe someone is going through very old nominations that got stuck somewhere in the process and send them for voting.

  • Gendgi-PGOGendgi-PGO Posts: 3,534 Ambassador

    The Description isn't always blank, and sometimes new nominations have blank descriptions.

    [Redacted] nominations were made off of an older version of Ingress (called Scanner: Redacted) that became inaccessible Sept 30, 2019 (if I remember correctly). The most distinguishing way to tell then is they did not have a supplemental photo or text. You had to make a nomination with only the main photo and title & description, and the reviewers could only see that.

  • Lechu1730-PGOLechu1730-PGO Posts: 537 ✭✭✭✭

    Then it certainly was one of those nominations.

  • Gendgi-PGOGendgi-PGO Posts: 3,534 Ambassador

    I know The Raven was still in voting today. Interesting that dozens of people across several reviewer groups I am in have reported seeing, voting, and approving this nomination and yet it remains unapproved.

  • Hosette-INGHosette-ING Posts: 3,469 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @Gendgi-PGO I got it last night as well after my four-day cooldown expired. It's nowhere near me, which means it's either upgraded, a honeypot, or a bug.

  • Gendgi-PGOGendgi-PGO Posts: 3,534 Ambassador

    Same with me - it's far from my area. I almost wouldn't mind the 8 hour drive to make a proper nomination for that poor town, though.

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